TWO THINGS THE GOP WILL BASH TO HOLD ONTO POWER
In January 2016, discussing polls suggesting that he was the heavy favorite to win the Republican presidential nomination, Donald Trump famously deadpanned the depths of his supporters’ loyalty. “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters,” he declared at a campaign stop in Iowa.
Four years and three months later, that loyalty is largely intact if not intensifying during the biggest crisis of his presidency, a pandemic that has killed tens of thousands of Americans. At least 40% of voting Americans simply won’t care that in January, when Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar tried to talk to the president about the novel coronavirus by phone after the first U.S. case was reported in Washington state, Trump changed the topic to vaping and waited more than seven weeks to declare a national emergency. Or that last year he sought to use $391 million in aid as a lever to force Ukraine to manufacture allegations against Democratic presidential candidate and now presumptive nominee Joe Biden. Or that Trump acts as if there is nothing wrong with making fun of the physical appearance or accents of others.
But there is a danger in the assumption by writers in the New Republic, Daily Kos and other liberal outlets that Trumpism is a “cult” created by a “con man” with a gift for appealing to people’s dark sides. As a libertarian, I feel like a neutral observer in today’s culture wars. I think a Trump-type candidate without his baggage could easily win in a future presidential election. Such a Republican would have the “deplorables” and more eagerly by his or her side.
Fueling the gap would be the difference in how the coastal elites and much of the nation see the world, especially when it comes to immigration. These elites side with most economists and many business leaders in saying immigration greatly benefits the nation. I agree. Immigrant entrepreneurs are one of America’s greatest strengths.
But Trump grasped long ago — as he showed again on Twitter late Monday night when he declared a
“temporary suspension” to all immigration and then followed up on Wednesday with a more limited 60-day ban on some categories of immigrants — that most of the public has a different view.
Gallup has been polling on immigration since 1965, and never have more Americans backed increasing immigration instead of decreasing it. In January 2018, after a long stretch in which the U.S. admitted about 1 million legal immigrants a year, a Harris poll of 980 registered voters done in conjunction with Harvard found that 63% of Americans thought that number should be cut by half or much more. One in 11 respondents said it should be zero.
Yet if skepticism about immigration is the foundation of Trumpism, anger toward and disdain for the media are the beams and columns that hold the roof up. A Pew Research Center poll last fall of 12,043 Americans found that half or more of conservatives distrust CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times and NBC News, and that their dislike of the media had surged since 2014.
The snarky one-liner offered by conservative writer Jim Treacher back then — “Modern journalism is all about deciding which facts the public shouldn’t know because they might reflect badly on Democrats” — is now gospel on rightwing Twitter.
In the last month alone, I have seen or heard countless variations on this theme related to Trump and the pandemic: Why do the media say Trump did nothing when he banned most flights from China in January and drew criticism for doing so from Democrats? Why don’t they say that Trump wasn’t the only one downplaying the coronavirus threat in February — what about New York Mayor Bill de Blasio or the other U.S. and international leaders who did the same thing?
Whether or not you view these comments through a partisan lens, the ferocity with which they are expressed shows the sincere beliefs driving them. If Trump loses in November — as polls from swing states suggest may happen — the 63 million Americans who voted for him in 2016 aren’t going anywhere.
So here’s a thought for Democrats: an immigrationand media-bashing Republican without Trump’s baggage and lack of discipline might have an easier path to 270 electoral votes than Trump did in the last election.
An Edelman poll of 1,150 adults from last fall showed only 43% of independents trust the media. The other 57% — potentially tens of millions of voters — just might be ripe territory for a future presidential candidate who has Trump-like positions but more conventional attitudes about how to run the government.
Trump recognized the appetite for his views. He didn’t create it.
Trump recognized the appetite of millions of Americans for his ripping of immigration and the media. He didn’t create it.